Yajaira Gonz\u00e1lez and her husband, Marco Rodr\u00edguez, arrived before 6 a.m. for a routine appointment with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Miramar, north of Miami. They knew the process: for five years they had been reporting to that same office while their asylum case moved through the courts. But on Sunday, June 28, only Gonz\u00e1lez came out. Rodr\u00edguez, 36, was taken into custody and spent three days in an overcrowded room with about 70 other people, with barely any water or food and a single toilet.<\/p>\n
His case is part of a series of complaints from relatives, activists and immigration attorneys that some people are spending several days detained in Miramar, at a facility designed for processing and short-term detention, despite lacking beds, bathrooms, water, food or adequate conditions for overnight stays.<\/p>\n
The complaints come amid a nationwide surge in immigration arrests<\/a>, which totaled more than 10,000 over a five-day period late last month. They also follow the closure of the notorious Alligator Alcatraz detention center in the Everglades, as well as evacuations caused by wildfires at the Krome detention center<\/a> southwest of Miami. According to witness accounts, the Miramar office has been receiving people arrested elsewhere and then holding them there for several days.<\/p>\n Immigrant-rights activists say they have noticed a significant increase in recent weeks in unmarked vehicles arriving at the facility \u201cloaded with people,\u201d allegedly detained at other locations. On one day alone, they saw more than 30 vehicles unload detainees, according to Mar\u00eda Bilbao, coordinator of the American Friends Service Committee.<\/p>\n That was the case for Roger Mois\u00e9s Flores Oviedo, a 19-year-old Honduran who was detained the Saturday before last as he left a gas station in Pompano Beach, north of Miami, after buying something for lunch.<\/p>\n His wife, Koren Noblig, says Flores works in construction, has no criminal record and has a pending asylum application. On Saturday night, he called her to say that ICE agents who detained him \u201cput him in a van and took him to Miramar, where they placed him in a room with 50 other men, many wearing work clothes and boots, sitting on the floor with their hands behind their backs,\u201d with barely enough room to move. <\/p>\n He remained there until Tuesday, when he was transferred to Krome. By the day of the transfer, there were already 70 people in the room. Noblig says he was given only one bottle of water a day and a piece of bread with peanut butter. At Krome, he was able to shower, sleep in a bed and communicate with her, she says.<\/p>\n Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz made an unannounced visit to Miramar last week and described the conditions as \u201chorrific.\u201d \u201cWhat I saw were people packed in like sardines, in conditions I wouldn\u2019t wish upon my worst enemy,\u201d she said<\/a> at a press conference.<\/p>\n Lack of medical care<\/p>\n The complaints extend to the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in downtown Miami, where authorities transferred some immigrants from Krome in the middle of last month because of wildfires that swept through the western part of the county.<\/p>\n Among them is Nosl\u00e9n Sendra, a 41-year-old Cuban who was detained during an appointment in Miramar in November, spent five months at Alligator Alcatraz <\/a>and was sent to Krome in early April. His wife, Anisley Cort\u00e9s, says Sendra is diabetic and suffered pancreatitis while in detention because of extremely high triglyceride levels, requiring hospitalization. According to Sendra, he is not receiving the medical treatment he needs at the FDC, and she fears he could suffer another health crisis.<\/p>\n Prison officials tell her \u201cthey cannot give him another medication because they are not responsible, that ICE is responsible,\u201d Cort\u00e9s says. \u201cI\u2019m desperate because I\u2019m afraid he\u2019ll have another pancreatitis episode in there. The doctors say they can\u2019t do anything, that they can\u2019t provide medications. I don\u2019t know what to do. I don\u2019t know who to turn to.\u201d<\/p>\n A Department of Homeland Security spokesman told EL PA\u00cdS in an email that \u201cany claim that there are substandard conditions in ICE detention centers is FALSE,\u201d arguing \u201call detainees are provided adequate meals, medical care and opportunities to communicate with family and attorneys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs the number of beds has expanded rapidly, we have maintained a standard of care higher than that of most prisons that house U.S. citizens, including access to adequate medical care. Detained population figures fluctuate daily at ICE facilities in Florida and across the country,\u201d the statement added. It also said remaining in detention \u201cis a choice\u201d and encouraged people to use the CBP Home app to self-deport<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alligator Alcatraz, a symbol of Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, was emptied last month less than a year after it opened during a visit by President Donald Trump. The detainees, whose numbers had reached nearly 1,400, were transferred at night and without prior notice to relatives or lawyers to facilities in Louisiana, Arizona and other states, as well as the FDC in Miami.<\/p>\n During a press conference with border czar Tom Homan announcing the closure, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that about 21,000 people had been \u201cprocessed\u201d there and that the site had been designed as a temporary solution to support the federal government, while the Department of Homeland Security expanded its own detention capacity. The governor insisted that Florida would continue cooperating with ICE through 287(g) agreements<\/a> and by detaining immigrants at other facilities such as Deportation Depot in Baker County, north of the peninsula.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security has backed away from a plan to convert industrial warehouses into immigrant detention centers following changes in the agency\u2019s leadership, including the dismissal of Kristi Noem and the appointment of Markwayne Mullin<\/a> as her successor.<\/p>\n